


Spearmint or Wintergreen?

by ships_to_sail



Category: Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
Genre: Fluff, Introspection, M/M, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 12:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13076469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/ships_to_sail
Summary: When the entirety of summer seems to pass in a blink, the walk back from Moose River is just enough time for Victor Pulak to rethink everything he knows.





	Spearmint or Wintergreen?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loveoftheimpossible](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveoftheimpossible/gifts).



The walk back from Moose River was a long one. Or, a longish one? Victor wasn’t entirely sure - it seemed to take him all day to drive back to Abby, but he’d managed to run it in practically seconds flat. So maybe it was better to say that the walk back from Moose River was exactly as long as Victor Kulak needed to be to realize he’d been wrong about literally everything he’d done this summer.

He wasn’t sure when he realized. When he’d seen Abby kissing that kid outside the Rec Hall, he’d felt like his stomach was about to drop out of his shoes. He’d spent the entire summer thinking about Abby - what it would be like to kiss her, to run his hands along the bottom of her crop-top, just below her boobs. Her female, human boobs that Victor wanted to touch more than he wanted just about anything else.

Just about anything else.

Because if there was something else he wanted, just a little bit more, it was for Neil to not be mad at him anymore. Sure, they’d left the river laughing - so much so that it felt, just for a second, like he and Neil were in the end credit scene of some hilarious new sitcom. But then Beth had offered to drive Neil back, making Victor walk as punishment for the fact that he’d left the campers on the river to begin with.

“Your dick is not a good reason to kill campers,” Beth had scolded him sternly. “You’re not Andy.”

Victor hung his head in shame and nodded. He knew he wasn’t Andy. He wasn’t hot enough to get away with a complete dereliction of duty. But he also knew that he needed some time to think, and no time would be better or more immediate than the walk back. After all, camp was officially over at midnight.

Victor pulled on the bottom of his pockets, which were beginning to bunch up against the high hem of his denim shorts. His sandals slipped on his feet and the sleeveless shirt he was wearing felt too tight. Victor felt too in his body, and he knew why.

Neil. 

It was always Neil.

Neil, with his well kept business in the front fading to the most glorious party in the back. Neil, with his thick aviator glasses, so thick that Victor had once taken turns with JJ trying to bounce off of them during a game of quarters. Neil, whom he had spent the entire summer lying to, only to come clean in the most humiliating fashion possible.

When he’d told Neil the truth - that, rather than the sexual lothario he’d been pretending to be, he was in fact a captial V virgin - he’d been expecting something closer to mocking and scorn than what he got: disbelief. And hurt. He hadn’t meant to hurt Neil. He’d just wanted to get laid. Preferably by Abby. But then Neil had looked at him with a mix between foppish adoration and bone deep irritation and Victor had waivered. Not enough to, you know, NOT ditch the campers on the river in order to go see Abby. But definitely enough to wonder if going was the right decision, after all.

Yeah, definitely wasn’t, said a voice in the back of his head. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Neil’s. And Victor felt it. That tiny hook behind his belly button, the one that got tugged on just a little bit whenever he thought of his best friend. And Neil was, without a doubt, his best friend.

Plodding on, one foot in front of the other, Victor began to wonder about that hook. About whether other dudes felt that same tug, if that was just a thing that happened to dudes when they thought of their other dude friends. Probably not, given that there was no hook when he thought about JJ, or McKinley, or Ben….okay, maybe there was a little tug for Ben. Victor wasn’t blind. But nothing held a candle to the way his stomach went, pun intended, belly up every time he thought of Neil.

But he wasn’t...couldn’t be...well, let’s just say that he wanted to be a guest at the Ben and McKinley wedding table, not a founding member. Shit, he hadn’t spent the whole summer wanting into Abby’s pants for fashion reasons. Then again, Victor knew enough to know that, well, feelings don’t lie. Not those kind of feelings, the kind that made your naughty bits feel all funny. And when he closed his eyes and thought about Neil, his naughtiest bit felt absolutely hilarious. 

So...there was that. 

Victor picked up his pace, bordering on the edge between walking and running, and even as tired as his legs were, the rest of Victor was even more tired. Tired of walking, tired of watching Abby watch everyone but him, tired of lying. He was really, really tired of lying.

And, just like that, he saw the sign for camp. He wanted the hallelujah chorus, but issued decided to settle for the sounds of the indoor kids frantically rolling dice on the picnic tables. Nerds. 

Everyone was in the rec hall, or at least it sure seemed that way to Victor. And he was glad - he was sweaty, and more than a little damp from the river water. He needed a shower in the worst way, but first he needed to see Neil.

And he didn't want anyone else around when that happened.

Neil was just leaving Beth's office, the two laughing and smiling conspiratorially while Beth rubbed her stomach. He called Neil's name and gave a little half-wave. Neil strolled over, his hands in his pockets and his eyes wary. “Hey. How was your walk?”

Victor turned and began to walk away from the rec hall, Neil falling into step beside him. “Good. You know...legs,” Victor shrugged and motioned vaguely towards his shorts.

Neil nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Those would be necessary...what’s up, Victor?”

Neil stopped walking, leaning up against a copse of trees. Victor stopped, too, and tried to wipe the sweat off his palms. His shorts were too small. Or just small enough? Nothing made sense to Victor anymore.

“Sup? Nothing. Nothing, you know. Just thinking on that walk, and wanted to say I'm sorry.” Neil raised an eyebrow and let silence fill the space. Victor swallowed painfully. “Sorry I didn't tell you, Neil. I shoulda. Of all people, I shoulda told you. And not just because your best friend.”

“Yeah?”

Victor almost winced at the hopeful joy in Neil’s voice. 

“Yeah. But...I think...I think maybe that's not all, you know?”

This time, it was Victor’s turn to let the silence sit. He looked Neil in the face, trying to broadcast all the things his heart was feeling: confusion, hope, fear, and a shit ton of attraction. 

Neil took a step forward. “I...don’t know. Or, I don't know what you know, Vic. I know what I know, but I have no idea how to know what you know if you don't know what you know.”

Victor’s head hurt. But he was pretty sure that somewhere in all of that, Neil had said he likes Victor. And Victor only knew one way to find out.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the stick of gum he'd been carrying since the summer started.

“You wanna split a piece of gum?”

**Author's Note:**

> For loveoftheimpossible: 
> 
> Oh dear sweet God I hope you enjoy it because oh my fuck I forgot how hard humor was to write!
> 
> Happy festivus, m'dear.


End file.
